Read­ing Old Jews Telling Jokes is like wel­com­ing an old-time Jew­ish com­ic, a Bor­sht Bel­ter, into your liv­ing room and then sit­ting back to enjoy as they do their shtick. Pag­ing through Hoffman’s com­pi­la­tion of ​“Oldies but Good­ies” is tan­ta­mount to dig­ging into and fin­ish­ing a half gal­lon of the most fla­vor­ful, fat-laden ice cream. You know your stom­ach is going to hurt when you’re done but it’s sooo good, you sim­ply can’t stop. 

No, you’re not going to feel nau­se­at­ed after read­ing Old Jews, but you will expe­ri­ence belly­ach­ing laughs as well as a myr­i­ad of eye-rolling groan­ers. Flip­ping the pages of this old-time Jew­ish humor tome won’t be as reli­gious an expe­ri­ence as read­ing the Torah, but you will like­ly be left with a con­nec­tion to the sar­cas­tic, dry wit that has fueled the Jews to sur­vive what­ev­er crises or life sit­u­a­tions were thrown their way. 

Take, for exam­ple, the sto­ry about an elder­ly Jew­ish man with an equal­ly aged Jew­ish wife who is informed his insur­ance pol­i­cy will pay up to $9,000, at $1,000 per inch, to recon­struct his penis. His doc­tor sug­gests the man dis­cuss the sit­u­a­tion with his wife so that, post-surgery, he nei­ther dis­ap­points nor fright­ens her with his new appendage. Upon return­ing the next day to ask whether the cou­ple has reached a deci­sion, the old man responds that they have. ​“We’re get­ting gran­ite countertops.”

Hoff­man and Spiegel­man have com­piled page after page of self-effac­ing Jew­ish humor that’s a plea­sure to read and share.